More snow!

The past couple of weeks it felt like the winter was nearing an end. The past few days reversed that feeling. We have gotten a lot of wet, heavy snow. Good for snowballs, bad for shoveling. The problem now is that I need to lift every shovel full of snow over my head to get it on top or over the pile I've built on the side of my driveway. Here's a picture of me (to help you get a sense of the scale) sitting on the side of my driveway in the massive snowbank.

Don't bother zooming in on this picture. I'm not in focus, which is a little embarrassing.

I guess all the snow has an added benefit. Better home security! The door heading out to my backyard would take a while (not to mention a lot of effort) to open by a would be thief (not like we have those around where I live).

Discovery's final flight

The final launch of the space shuttle Discovery was successful! I'm so proud because I know I was instrumental in it's success. After all, could they have repaired it in time if I didn't take a picture of it from a mile away back in November? I think not! I've posted the picture before that was clearly instrumental to the success of the launch today (notice the expert analysis, where I pointed out that the shuttle is very big).

Here's a picture from my trip back in November. It's hard to believe that these tiles are able to protect the shuttle during reentry. They look so fragile.

I was able to watch the launch today live at work because nobody walked in my cubicle while I was watching it (it was only 5 minutes anyway). If you didn't get to see it, and want to, here it is!

      

Pale blue dot

I'm not sure why, all of a sudden, I'm coming across more and more space/planetary size comparisons. But I'm loving it! Here's the latest one, comparing the planets of our solar system to our star and others.



It's hard to even imagine how big the universe is, but it's fun to try!

That video reminds me of this picture, described by Carl Sagan himself in this video.

Learning to Cook

If I had anything else to add to better describe my cooking habits, I'd write them here. But, this flow chart sums it up perfectly. I'm about at the "I should cook more!" phase right now. It's only a matter of time until I buy ingredients and put some in a pan!

http://xkcd.com/ for more comics like this. Although be warned...the disclaimer at the bottom of the page reads "Warning: this comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors)."

Editing marathon done!

I've been working, slowly but surely, on editing pictures from Christmas. Spent a few hours this morning to power through the last of them. Out of the 619 pictures I took, 79 of them made the cut to be edited and shared. Maybe about 15 of those I'd consider really, really good. Glad I'm not shooting with a film camera, this hobby would get expensive quickly.

Here is not one of those pictures. It's actually a picture of the room I had when I went to Germany last year...random, I know, but I was going through some old pictures and thought this would be an interesting one to post.

Jupiter is massive!

Look at this video of what the other planets would look like if they orbited at the same distance as our moon. It's incredible to imagine how it would be if we saw these planets rather than the moon in our night sky. Simply amazing. I love anything like this that sparks my imagination. This is just our solar system in our galaxy in our universe, and it's breath taking. The possibilities are endless in other solar systems, galaxies, and (perhaps) other universes. Is there someone somewhere who has a Jupiter sized object filling their night sky, wondering what it would be like if their planet was orbited by a small moon sized object?


Scale from Brad Goodspeed on Vimeo.

888 - 430 = Perfection

Let me tell you, I am in love with the Ferrari F430. It's really an amazing car; just perfect really. There's nothing that would keep me from buying one if I had the money. Who could explain this better than Jeremy Clarkson...



Well, there's one thing that would keep me from buying it. The new 458. Brace your jaw so it doesn't hit the floor as you watch this clip. I was not prepared, and now I have a bruise on my chin. And yes, you want to wait for the 1080p version to buffer; it's worth it.



...Youtube needs a infinite repeat option

Birthday present

I've gotten into a habit of buying myself a birthday present once a year. Last year I got my camera, this year I got a keyboard (much, much cheaper than the camera)! Just hit the place order button on Amazon, it should be here Thursday! I love getting new toys, especially the ones that present me with a challenge. I don't play the keyboard, I've never tried to play the piano, but I did play trombone...so, there's that. Haha, this should be interesting...hopefully I'm able to teach myself without too much difficulty or frustration.

From my parents, I got a real coffee grinder (a burr grinder to replace my cheap chopping style 'grinder'). Had the coffee for the first time this morning, and it was really good. Now all I need is some whole bean French vanilla and I will be set. Now that I think about it, I should have gotten that with my keyboard order on Amazon.

As for the picture for this post, here's my parents dog enjoying the Christmas day snow (yep, it snowed down there, and yes, the whole city shut down).

I'm still here

It's been a while since my last post, so I figured it's time to get back into it. I've been really busy with work, working long days and weekends. Thanks to me being salary, I only get paid for 45 hours a week. Hopefully all this work will pay off in about 6 months. There is one more hell week, then it should ease up. I'm going to try and post more, but who knows...I can't predict how much I'll post.

I started going through pictures trying to decide which picture to post here, and realized that I have 687 Christmas vacation pictures that I haven't gone through yet. Started going through those while listening to a Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg Pandora station. That's really a good time. It's been a slow progression, but editing pictures is getting more and more enjoyable. About 10% of the Christmas pictures look like they'll be good. Here's one of the Christmas tree my parents put up.

That's enough for one post, I could go off on tangents and make this one really long post. I think I'll break up my tangent thoughts into more posts. Maybe more than one post this weekend!! Shock!

Blog post? Sure!

I have no clue what the subject of this post is going to be. I felt like writing something, but I don't know what...so hopefully it will come to me.

So work has been crazy, crazy busy. About 3 months ago, the engineering manager left. Now, next week, the R&D manager (my boss) will be leaving. That's huge work load to be made up by us, non-manager people. It will be busy the next few months, and hopefully I'll make it through the end of February without hating my job much.

Another picture from my trip to the space center in Florida.

New room, new desk

I decided to move my computer from my bedroom to my living room. I removed all the cables from my computer, cleaned my desk and began to move it. Shortly thereafter, I realized I wasn't going to get it where I wanted without taking it apart. So I took it apart, took it out of my bedroom and went to Staples to find a new desk. I've had that desk since Junior year of college. I remember the morning I put it together for the first time, I was hungover like you would not believe. Since then I have taken it apart and reassembled it at least 5-6 times through all my moves. So here's the new desk and new location. I have a feeling I'm really going to like the new spot.

Perspective

Reading over my last few posts make me laugh. Yeah, it was a rough week filled with some bad news (more than what I posted) but it's not as bad as I made it sound. Yeah, I'm out a lot of money, but the worst that will do is delay my next toy purchase. It's not like I'm building up credit card debt, or struggling to pay rent. This is a benefit of the blog, I'm able to look back and see what I was thinking, and put it all in perspective.

Anyway, I was down in Orlando, FL for all of last week for work. I had one day free and went to the Kennedy Space Center. Dorky, I know, but it was really cool. I walked around there, took a bus tour, watched a 3d IMAX movie (Hubble 3d), and took a ton of pictures. I got to see the space shuttle Discovery on the launch pad, and luckily I had my 70-300 lens with me, so I got the best picture possible. Here's the shot from about a mile away (the closest I was able to get). Unfortunately, they keep a 'cover' on it until 24 hrs until it launches, so you can't see too much.

^^^---click on this picture, the full res is much better---^^^

Notice the cars under the launch pad; that shuttle is absolutely massive!!

P.S. I'm not going to stick to schedules with this blog. I've said many times in the past that I'd post 3 times a week, but I don't want to set myself on a schedule. I may post 5 times one week, then not again until 2 weeks later. I don't see any reason to force myself to a schedule; if I want to post, I'll post, if I don't, I won't....simple.

Cracked Radiator

'nuff said...

Oh, and a picture of the car; just so this post isn't too boring.

The bad with the good

I figured I might as well make blog posts on days that suck, not just worry free weekends. About 0.5 miles from my house today, I was in traffic (which is crazy in itself) and noticed some smoke coming from under the hood of my car. Fuck! was my first thought. Got home, opened the hood to be greeted by a nice even coat of antifreeze on everything. Awesome! Just what I need a week before traveling for work, then traveling for Thanksgiving, then traveling for Christmas (or winter solstice celebration, whichever you prefer). I have the joy of dropping my car off in the morning at the shop, so they can see how much they can get away with charging me. Thank you Dane Cook for already summing up my feeling about auto mechanics.

“It’s that same vibe that you get with any auto mechanic you’ve ever dealt with. Even though you’re listening and nodding, in your head you’re like “this guy is fuckin’ me big time”. You just believe whatever they say:

Mechanic: “Yeah we had to replace the roof on your car, it was peeling back.  It resented the rest of the car, so we replaced that. Also, there was a tiny unicorn in your exhaust and he was jumping and poking holes in your exhaust, and he was shitting in your filters as well. So we had to get that out of there."

Dane: “Wow, thank you very much. I did not know that there was a tiny mythological animal jumping around in there… that’s very dangerous. Shitting in filters, no way. Especially with a road trip coming up, that’s very dangerous. Shitting in filters, that little son of a b. Wow, wow. Thank you. How much is that? Seven thousand? I was going to suggest, I’d like to pay seven thousand’ish, I’d love to pay for that. Thank you for not fucking me big time!"

And now for something completely different. This music makes me smile every time I hear it. Now I want a keyboard.

Picture time

Went yesterday driving and looking for places to take pictures. The driving part was hilarious, raced an old guy in a truck. I wasn't expecting him to jump off the line, so I wasn't ready for a quick launch myself. I noticed he floored it when the light turned green, so I did the same. 1st gear, around 4k RPM turbo kicked in and I started to pull away. Had a perfect shift to 2nd and was gone. It was fun, and the first time in a long time I've actually had somebody try and race me. Thank you, old guy in a blue truck.

On the the pictures. I got some good ones, in my opinion, but they were unexpected. Let me explain...I remember taking the pictures, not because I thought they would turn out good; just to take the picture. Not looking at the picture as a final product, but rather the act of taking the picture as my goal. I expected, as has happened so many times, that I would take a bunch of pictures, then load them on the computer, and never do anything else with them.

Last night, while sitting in the living room surrounded by 5 speakers and 1 sub, I turned on some music and played a slideshow of the pictures I took (raw, unedited, straight from the camera). This blew my mind, and gave me some ideas...expect something great to come from this in the future (I'll link back to this post when it happens). Ok, ok, on to the pictures...

Wait, ADD kicking in once again. One more thing I wanted to mention. I never really appreciated my wide angle lens (16-85mm f3.5-5.6) until now. I've always found it difficult to get interesting wide angle shots. I feel like, usually, they just turn out to be 'bland' pictures anyone can take with any camera. I'd say this is probably the most difficult area of photography for me right now. It's shots like this bridge picture that help me appreciate wide angle shots, and give me inspiration to try and improve.

RP1: Been busy

So this is a post in which I don't really have anything to talk about. RP1 stands for random post 1. I have been really busy with work, trying to get a machine finished and out the door. But that is not the reason I haven't posted anything in a while. Honestly, I've just wanted to relax, catch up on some TV shows, some games, etc. I have been waiting for something meaningful to post, but have not come across anything.

I took a few pictures of my car, after walking out of work one evening (it was after dark obviously, and a Saturday). I had my D90 with the 'nifty fifty' in hand and thought this might turn out pretty nice. I was correct, it looks cool with all the parking lot lights. Glad the 50mm has f/1.8 for it's largest apaeture...I needed all the light I could get. I like how the lighting highlights the fender flares!

I've been playing a lot of Starcraft 2, Minecraft, and F1 2010. All awesome games, I just don't have the time to play all of them as much as I would like. When I try to throw blogging into that mix, it is a little difficult. The question recently has been, which game should I play, not what can I write on the blog. Hence, random post 1; hope you enjoyed it. I'm just happy to get a post out. I'm going to keep trying for an average of 3-4 posts a week, as I mentioned in my first ever blog post...but that is easier said than done.

Starcraft 2 - Game changing tip

If you saw my previous few posts about Starcraft 2, you know that I am not very good at it. To try and improve my game, I have been watching a lot of videos and replays of really good players. Yesterday, I found the tip that changes the game; always be making workers. Literally always. Workers = money and money = army. This is much easier said than done, but at least it's something to work on with the game. Prior to this, I didn't have any goal in the game except not die (which is pretty difficult). It really turns the game around, and it is obvious now that this exactly how the best players became the best. All this being said, I still suck at the game, but I now know how to get better.

Lusting after home decor

First off, I'm the type of person who prefers function over form. I appreciate something that sacrifices form to be more functional much more than something that sacrifices function to look good.

With this in mind, imagine my shock when I set my eyes on this beautiful home decor. Sure, the smallest, cheapest thing in the collection would probably cost me my right leg, 3 fingers from my right hand, and my left arm. However, that being said, I have never wanted any home furnishings so badly (and I'm right handed, so I could probably give up my left arm). Look at these lamps!

This floor lamp is an exhaust from a Red Bull Formula 1 car. As in, it is an actual exhaust manifold that was used in a race. At one point in it's life, this thing was glowing red hot, funneling gases from an engine revving to 19,000 RPM (You read that write, nineteen-thousand RPM).

This smaller lamp is made up from various components out of a gearbox. At one point, these components were trying to rip themselves apart getting 900 horsepower from the engine to the tires. 

Weight is everything in every form of motorsport, and this is taken to the extreme in Formula 1. You can be sure that these components were exactly as strong as they needed to be and absolutely no stronger. They weren't designed to look good, they were designed purely, 100%, for function. This makes them even more beautiful...they were designed for function, and they still look absolutely incredible. In the words of the great Brick Tamland, "I love lamp."

If you're in the mood for your jaw to hit the floor, check out the rest of the collection here (it's not all lamps).

Formula 1 - Singapore

This is shaping up to be an amazing weekend. With only 5 races to go, and 5 drivers still in the hunt for the 2010 title, this race could make or break for a few driver's hopes. It's a fantastic spectacle, at night under the lights, with downtown Singapore lit up in the background...it's a beautiful race to watch. The track is a pain to drive though. Every corner is slow speed, and to be quick, you need to be right on the limit of destroying your car. We'll see how it goes, the tension is definitely in the air! I can't wait! Qualifying tomorrow live at 10am eastern time!

Twitter

I started up a twitter account this weekend. I didn't think it would be something for me, but it's actually pretty awesome. It makes it easier to see really popular people as real people...not some larger than life persona. I'm not sure if I will post much on there, but we'll see. Follow me! haha. Not really. Well, you can if you want...it actually might inspire me to put relevant stuff up there.